Action off Bougainville

Action off Bougainville
	Part of the Pacific Theater of World War II
	; Watanabe's plane attempting to crash into Lexington after the end of the attack. The bomber had already been badly damaged, losing the port engine nacelle due to fire from one of Lexington's fighters, piloted by Edward O'Hare, and had already expended its bombload previously, returned to attempt a ramming attack on the carrier but crashed shortly after this moment off the carrier's stern.
Date	20 February 1942
Location	450 mi (390 nmi; 720 km) east of Bougainville, Territory of New Guinea
Result	Japanese air group takes heavy losses;; American raid turned back
Belligerents
United States	Japan
Commanders and leaders
Wilson Brown; Frederick Carl Sherman	Shigeyoshi Inoue; Eiji Gotō
Strength
1 aircraft carrier; 4 cruisers; 10 destroyers; 19 fighters	17 bombers; 5 scouts
Casualties and losses
2 fighters destroyed; 1 killed	19 aircraft destroyed; 130 killed

The action off Bougainville was a naval and air engagement on the South Pacific Theater of World War II near Bougainville, Papua New Guinea on 20 February 1942. A United States Navy aircraft carrier task force on its way to raid the Imperial Japanese military base at Rabaul, New Britain was attacked by a force of land-based bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The US task force was commanded by Admiral Wilson Brown and the Japanese aircraft forces were under the command of Eiji Gotō.

In the ensuing engagement, the Japanese 4th Kōkūtai lost 15 of 17 bombers sent to attack the American carrier group. The United States lost only two fighters in defence, and no ships were damaged. As a result of the loss of surprise, however, the Americans retired without raiding Rabaul as originally planned. Because of the heavy losses in bombers, the Japanese were forced to delay their planned invasion of New Guinea, giving the Allies more time to prepare defences against the Japanese advances in the South Pacific.